New Songdo City

Abstract

The government of South Korea has chosen John Hynes and Gale International to construct New Songdo City. This is an entirely new city, about the size of Boston, between the new Incheon airport and the capital of Seoul. The proposed city is the government's attempt to create an Asian financial and business center to rival Shanghai and Tokyo. But how to design, market, build, and finance a whole city is up for grabs. Is this the typical developer hubris or can it really work?

Related Work

The government of South Korea has chosen John Hynes and Gale International to construct New Songdo City. This is an entirely new city, about the size of Boston, between the new Incheon airport and the capital of Seoul. The proposed city is the government's attempt to create an Asian financial and business center to rival Shanghai and Tokyo. But how to design, market, build, and finance a whole city is up for grabs. Is this the typical developer hubris or can it really work?

More from the Author

This background note explores the basic themes surrounding the government's approach to providing housing: namely its shift from a supplier and builder of affordable housing to an approach that focuses on demand-side solutions and indirect subsidies to private developers. In addition to a shift from supply-based to demand-based solutions, there is an on-going debate about whether to provide people-based or place-based solutions. The above shift and debate reflects the troubles encountered in the original urban renewal efforts, and the desire today to provide affordable housing that is close to jobs and transportation, that is mixed-income, and contextual to its surrounding development.

Bashar Masri is developing the first new stand-alone Palestinian city 25 kilometers north of Jerusalem and 9 kilometers north of Ramallah in the West Bank on 6300 dunams (1556 acres) for 40,000 people with financial support from the Qatari investment authority and assistance from The Portland Trust. The first phase with 5000 homes along with a commercial city center, parks, schools and other public facilities will be available for occupancy in 2014. The eventual $1.5 billion new city has a host of start up problems including what should be built when and at what price along with infrastructure issues.